Tag Archives: fractal spinning

Today was a challenge day, and since I didn’t do any spinning yesterday because I sometimes do have a life, I challenged myself to spin a full 4 ounces of fiber today.

Here is a picture of success!

ITW Zephyr on Polwarth. This is a fractal spin done on my Flatiron in double drive. The singles are very thin and when plied together will make a fingering weight yarn, or maybe sport weight if the Polwarth poofs a lot when I wash the skein.

Yes, my spinning fiber stash just keeps getting bigger, in spite of my efforts to keep it under control by spinning, spinning, and spinning. I’m not ready to give up any of my fiber clubs quite yet, so I will just have to find room for all the fiber. Of course, every time I complete a spinning project, my fiber stash gets a little smaller, but my yarn stash gets bigger. And so it goes grows.

New fiber from February and March:

Into The Whirled 24 1/2th Century Falkland top

Into The Whirled Madame Vestra BFL

Spunky Eclectic Aspens Farmer’s Sheepwool (BFL)

Spunky Eclectic Black Pillar Polwarth/Mohair/Silk

Current spinning projects:

I’ve started spinning one bump of this lovely superwash Merino from Into The Whirled in the colorway Godric’s Hollow.

I split the bump in half vertically and I am spinning each half end to end onto one bobbin. I plan to chain ply the singles to make a self-striping yarn. I split the bump so that the color repeats (stripes) would be small.

These two braids are the December 2015 installment of the Sweet Georgia Yarns Fibre Club. The colorway is called Wistmas.

Wistmas is on a base of BFL, and I decided to do a fractal spin. This bobbin contains the singles spun from the braid that I split into 12 strips vertically. I spun the other braid end to end without splitting.

The plying is almost done. Because I spun two bumps, approximately 200 grams, of fiber, I filled one bobbin and had to start on a second bobbin. This is a straight-up 2-ply yarn, and the second bobbin is about 2/3s done. I love the sheen of BFL.

It’s been a while since I posted a finished object on Finished Object Friday, so I’m pretty happy to have something to post today.

I already told yinz about the fractal spin challenge I participated in on the Schacht Spinners group on Ravelry in a previous blog post.

Here are the final results.

The singles spun on two bobbins on my Schacht Ladybug in double drive

The singles plied together. I couldn’t quite fit it all onto one bobbin. I plied on my Ladybug in Scotch tension.

The 2-ply yarn straight off the niddy noddy

The finished skein. Honey Bear likes it. The silk gives the yarn a nice sheen, and the BFL gives it a nice halo.

The yarn is very fine.

My finished yarn is over 1300 yards in 115 grams, which is very fine lace weight. Overall, I’m very pleased with this spin. If I could do one thing over again, I would have started spinning the singles from the dark pink end instead of the green end so that when I started plying, I would have started with a solid green stripe. But all in all, this fractal spin was a rousing success.

I’ve written often on these pages about Ravelry and the wonderful community of knitters, crocheters, and spinners that has developed there. I belong to a number of spinning groups, and I have found that the members are knowledgeable, generous with their time, and eager to share their experience and advise those of us who are newer to spinning.

One of my spinning groups is Schacht Spinners, which is devoted to folks who spin or want to spin on Schacht wheels. One of the forum moderators started a “monthly” challenge (which sometimes runs more than one month) to encourage us to try different spinning techniques. It’s all very informal; you can participate or not, and you can go at your own pace. No pressure, just an opportunity to learn something new with the support of other spinners.

The current challenge is to do a fractal spin. I’ve done fractal spins before, but I’ve never done one with a gradient yarn. So, with my Schacht Ladybug set up in double drive using the highest ratio on the fast pulley––

A pretty braid of BFL and silk is just begging to be spun into yarn.

I thought this beautiful braid from Friends in Fibers in the Cranberry Bog Gradient colorway would be perfect for a gradient fractal spin.

The braid is unwound. Aren’t the colors pretty?

Here’s how it looks with the braid undone.

The fiber has been divided in half lengthwise.

One of the halves has been divided into five length-wise strips of graduated width.

The spinning has begun. See how thin the singles are?

I wanted to try to make a self-striping, lace weight, 2-ply yarn in which the color changes got farther and farther apart. I want to knit a triangular shawl in which the width of the stripes remains about the same from beginning to end. I want the color repeats to be shorter at the beginning of the shawl and get longer as the number of stitches increases.

I would never have thought to try this if I hadn’t joined this group and this challenge. But one of the participants posted a link to this blog post, which led to this blog post, which led me to say, I want to do this!

The first half is nearing completion.

The first bobbin of singles is nearly finished. I can hardly wait to start the second bobbin. I will be spinning the remaining strips end to end, keeping the colors in the same order (green to dark pink), starting with the thinnest strip and ending with the thickest. And I will be keeping my fingers crossed that the yarn turns out the way I envision it. But if it doesn’t, not to worry. It will be beautiful regardless. When you start with lovely fiber that has been beautifully dyed, it is almost impossible to mess it up. 🙂